Last week I paid another visit to Canterbury Cathedral Archives, and had more success. I finally found the baptism (and parentage) of my unusually-named Bean HATTON (at Whitfield, near Dover), found another couple of siblings in my Eastry FAGG line (one of whom, after a quick census check, may have been a proprietor of the Five Bells public House in the village), more DAWKINS, and a whole bunch more BALDOCK line at Westwell (connection as yet unknown).
These finds enable me to take my HATTON line back another generation, further my FAGG connections, and hopefully provide more BALDOCK tools on the road to linking those multiple lines!

One has to visit a cemetery such as that at Canterbury to appreciate its scale ….

I had gone along Sunday with the hope and expectation of finding missing CASTLE ancestors which I was unable to locate in St Dunstan’s churchyard. I should have been much wiser, having gone armed with a cemetery plan which show its segmentation into smaller zones. And as usual I had not contacted the local council to determine possible plots numbers…. !

All this meant that I was relying on my usual wanderings through gravestones and along paths, recording any names which were recognisable. However, this did result in my locating two or three CASTLE graves for people not in my tree, and a Charles HATTON, which I need to investigate.

One benefit of checking by this method is that one tends to find graves which may not otherwise have been found.

All this took around 3 hours – and still probably less than a third of the cemetery checked…. !

Note to self (again) – really, REALLY, must research plot numbers with councils before visiting more cemeteries!

I visited St.Dunstan’s church at Canterbury today, seeking CASTLE ancestry of my mother. Although I was unable to locate the relevant graves, I am confident of their existence from my sources. I believe that they are marked by some of the many weathered headstones.

Following this search, I moved on to nearby Blean and the churchyard at St. Cosmos & St. Damian. This was merely investigatory, with the possibility of locating a HATTON grave. Although I was unsuccessful in this goal, I surprisingly found a BALDOCK grave, for a couple I do not have, buried in the late 20th century. I now hope to trace these back for any possible links.

Information regarding cookies

This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used. More information.